


The Oppenheimer Principle

by AlulaSpeaks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Ma'lak Box (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 06:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18310175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlulaSpeaks/pseuds/AlulaSpeaks
Summary: Death comes for Dean, but not the way he hoped, and now it never will.





	The Oppenheimer Principle

The box isn’t like he thought it would be. Time crawls. Between its walls, Michael slips in and out of him at will. First blinding brightness in the coffin, pushing at him, burning him out. Then back inside. Pressure in his head so bad he can’t think, can’t drift away, suspended in the agonizing now. Gale force winds inside his head. And loud, so loud. Never still.

He waits for the drop and the slow seep of ocean water–it feels like years, it feels like centuries–but it doesn’t come. Has it only been minutes? Oh god, has it only been seconds? He kicks, twists, beats fists against the metal lid, knuckles splitting, blood smearing. Skin’s healed by the time he pulls his fist back the bare inch he can to punch and split and bleed again. It can’t keep going like this. It can’t, but it will. Doesn’t matter how hard he fights, how long he waits for Death. She’ll never come. Heat death of the universe and Dean will still be in this box–alive forever, drowning forever–swallowed by the hurricane.

Something flashes, punches into him and yanks. Pitch and yaw and his body slams through the sound barrier, thunderous crack following behind and when he opens his eyes he’s standing on a boat on the night sea.

High swells break over the bow, his half-bent knees ride the shock and he settles on the balls of his feet. It’s snowing–big, fat, wet flakes shining in the yellow halogen lights on the wheel house, the railing. The winter wind whips up and dies, rises again.

Sam’s smiling at him. Dean cocks his head, blinks. It was late spring when he went in the box on a boat much like this one. Must mean he never splashed down. Must mean Sam played him because he’s out. Impossible, and yet. Sam’s searching his face, his own mouth pulling tight.

“You were right,” Sam says to Cas where he stands beside the box, watching Dean, jaw ticking. Sam turns back to the Ma’lak box, shoves a translucent arm through the lid and fishes around. Sam grunts, pulls his arm from the box, incorporeal to solid flesh in the flick of an eyelid. Corded muscle and veins, fist clenched tight around a glowing light.

Dean’s seen a light like that before, knows what that is. His blood rises, his teeth grind, fight or flight kicking in, his body understands immediately how it’s about to be cut down. Knows he has to move but he can’t seem to take his eyes off Sam’s face, honed sharp in the soul’s staggering light, all of it familiar and more–so much more–but he can’t say what. He used to know, can’t reach it anymore. Cas slips in behind while he stares, hooks his arms around Dean’s, yanks back.

Dean snarls and bucks, tosses his head back but Cas is strong and Sam is there, right there, with his glowing fist and shadowed eyes. And the pain is back, bursting under his ribs, pulsing out to his toes. He screams but the sound won’t come, throat too raw and used up.

The pain settles into a dull throb at his knuckles, queasy weakness in all his muscles, a dense and terrible gravity right there behind his ribs. Dean collapses into it and Cas lets him go, steps back. Dean slides to his knees hands falling limp to the floor. His head so light it might fly away.

Sam goes to his knees in front of him, hands fisting on his thighs. A glint of metal catches Dean’s eyes. Sam’s wearing a ring; thick, silver band, and square, white stone. Dean knows the heft of that ring, wore it himself once.

He tries to think past the sickening wave of familiarity, but he can barely hold onto a thought in the sudden emptiness of his head. Still, he’s seen this all before. There’s only one creature in all of creation that can do what Sam just did, and what was the cage but a kind of Ma’lak box.

Dean stares at the ring, and Sam rubs his thumb back and forth along the edge of the stone. “No one would deal, or maybe no one could, but I couldn’t take no for an answer this time.”

Dread claws up the back of Dean’s throat. He reaches out but Sam stands, steps away.

“I can’t stay.” Sam says. “I’m sorry.”

He nods at Cas, looks Dean up and down one more time and then disappears, snow swirling through the place where he stood. Dean lurches forward, croaks out half of Sam’s name.

For a shuddering moment it’s like there’s a hole in the boat, pieces of the deck breaking off like cemetery sod and tumbling down deep into the heart of nothing, and he’s kneeling on the brink. The wind gusts and a wave crests, and when Dean blinks against the sting of salt spray, the hole is gone. Just like Sam.

Cas lifts the edge of the box over the railing, tips it up and pushes until it grinds overboard, splash-back washing over the deck. It bobs to the surface, sinking lower and lower, until a black swell cuts over it, enfolding it, carrying it down. The boat bucks in the wind, frigid water soaks into Dean’s jeans at the knees, along his shins. He can’t get up, can’t speak, can’t breathe. All this open space and he still can’t get enough air, and there’s still the wind and the wet and the cold.

Snow falls on the back of his hand, a thick flake, square like the ring on Sam’s hand. He watches the edges go flat, whole thing turning slowly translucent, melting away.

Death came for Dean, but not the way he hoped, and now it never will. Tomorrow or the next day Dean will be back behind the Impala’s wheel, and the tires will turn on and on. And the road will be the long, cold dark, and the engine the roaring wind. And there will be no rest and no relief. There will always be another storm, a hurricane brewing in the empty passenger seat.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find this work on [Tumblr](https://alulaspeaks.tumblr.com/post/183858852627/the-oppenheimer-principle).


End file.
